


Melt My Heart To Stone

by SoundandColor



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Gen, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1888224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoundandColor/pseuds/SoundandColor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johanna thinks it’s pretty hilarious that it took the revolution for Panem to go to hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melt My Heart To Stone

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my LJ in 2011.

**i | Johanna Mason, Gale Hawthorne | 792**

Johanna thinks it’s pretty hilarious that it took the revolution for Panem to go to hell.

  
Anything you can dream of—any drug, any vice—is there for the taking and she makes sure to partake in everything she can get her hands on. She goes to parties only people with recognizable names are invited to, she fucks the sort of man who would’ve paid for her time when she was only a Hunger Games winner; she does the sort of drugs that would’ve made those strung out junkies from the Quarter Quell faint with joy. The kind of Morph that makes her see stars.

  
The murder rate has skyrocketed according to the anchors on the morning information roundup but Johanna thinks about half of that is because bodies have stopped disappearing down black holes and have started showing up in the streets. The other half is due to the sudden appearance of weapons.

  
There was a time, back when they were all still living under Snow’s thumb, when a gun had been unattainable. The sort of thing people would sit alone and imagine what they could do if they could _just get their hands on one_.

  
Though it’s still not easy, it’s now possible and the _possibility_ of something has always been all Johanna needed to succeed. When she decides she wants a gun, she knows exactly where to go.

  
There are banks now, just like there were _before_ , but Johanna has to go to a certain floorboard under her bed to count out the number of bills she’ll need. The last time the government had any control over her, they’d thrown her into an arena, she wasn’t going to trust them with her money no matter how much things had supposedly changed.

  
There’s still tight security at the borders and she decides to buy a District Pass. She lets word of her impending travels slip to the right people, greases a few palms and someone finds her. She doesn’t have to meet him in a back alley, either. She doesn’t have to beat around the bush. Johanna goes to the man’s office and he hands her the pass in a small manila envelope.

  
Takes her cash with a warm thank you and she remembers a saying she’d read in one of the books from Snows library: _The more things change…_

  
Johanna catches a train to District 2 that very night.

  
She steps off in the first hours of daylight and makes her way to a place she’s never visited. The buildings go from the small businesses that always sprout up around stations, to ramshackle homes, before slowly growing in size until they look like the mansion before her now.

  
She walks up the slate drive slowly, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of a hand as she takes in the trimmed hedges and beautiful flowers flanking the entryway. There are people in uniforms hustling around the grounds but no one stops her. She steps up and slams the knocker down twice and when he opens the door, he doesn’t look surprised to see her, not in the least. She didn’t expect him to. A man like him must have eyes everywhere. He could never afford not to.

  
“Doing well, I see.” She mutters looking up at the chandelier over his front entrance. They stare at one another for a beat. “Are you going to let me in?” Gale steps to the side and closes the heavy front door at her back. “You know the reason for this little visit?”

  
“I have an idea.” He motions for her to follow and leads her up a winding staircase into a hidden room on the landing. There’s a wide, mahogany desk inside and shelves of books lining each wall. She guesses this is his office. The place where he makes nightmares like the bomb that killed Prim into reality. She lets her eyes wander as Gale walks to the other side of the desk and bends low.

  
There’s a moment of quiet before she hears a beep as, what she assumes is a safe, opens. He walks back around and hands it to her. “Will this do?”

 

She nods, almost breathless at having it in her hand. The gun is smooth. Cooler and much heavier than she would’ve imagined one of these things to be.

  
He watches her, face expressionless like he’s just asking to be polite. “What are you going to do with it?”

  
 _Things I’ve put off for much too long, things that needed doing years ago_. Johanna doesn’t say a word. Just smiles a secret grin and strokes the barrel the way she would a lover.

 

**ii | Johanna Mason, Enobaria | 649**

She hasn’t killed anyone in a very long time but Johanna knows it will come back to her as easy as a kiss. Making someone beg and cry and scream. Discovering how to make it hurt as much as you possibly can. Knowing just how far you can push them without ending the game—

  
( _Enobaria’s gone soft since she saw her last. Fat and drunk but she still moves with the grace of someone much fitter. She’s putting up more of a fight than Johanna expected but that’s good. Johanna likes that. It’ll make her inevitable victory even sweeter.)_

It’s as easy as telling a lie.

 

Johanna hadn’t been able to take her time when she’d killed in the arena. She’ll make sure to remedy that this go ‘round and it isn’t difficult to find her competitor, either. She’d been prepared to chase the woman across Panem. To cash in old favors, to have to work for this. In the end, all it took was one phone call to find out Enobaria was at home. That she had gone right back to District 2 and set up shop in the back booth of a bar called _The Bottom Line_ after she left the Capitol.

  
Johanna doesn’t even need to buy a train ticket.

  
( _She hasn’t trained in years and Johanna can’t catch her breath. She makes a mistake, telegraphs a punch so obviously a blind man could have seen it and gives Enobaria the upper hand._ _The woman’s on her in an instant. She starts to reach for the gun at her waist but Enobaria gets it first, tosses it over the ground and out of either of their reach._

 

  
 _“Not going to let you go that easy.” She mutters, tongue darting out absently to lick away the blood leaking from her right nostril. “You’re going to have to work for it, Princess.”_ )

  
She sees her as soon as she opens the door but Johanna doesn’t engage her right away. She goes over to the jukebox and picks a song, something sweet. She makes her way over to the bar, keeping an eye on the older woman in the corner and sips the drink some guy down the bar sends over. He catches her eye and she lifts her glass with a tight smile before refocusing on her target.

  
Johanna watches her from the very corner of her vision as she her anticipation stretches, goes taut and she realizes she can hear herself breathing. That her legs are moving restlessly and her nipples are hard. She licks her lips and finally turns toward the back booth.

  
( _It isn’t easy, but when Johanna finally gets her down_ , _Enobaria doesn’t make a sound. No matter how hard Johanna kicks or punches, the other girl never sheds a tear. She never begs for mercy. Johanna can almost respect her for that.)_

 

  
She walks toward the other woman slowly, her heart a wild but sure beat at her breast that only grows stronger the nearer she gets. She stops at the edge of the table, crosses her arms and stares down at the crown of Enobaria’s head.

  
  
“Another of the same,” she mutters, shaking her glass in Johanna’s direction without bothering to look up. She feels her jaw tighten before she forces herself to relax. Doesn’t move an inch and after a moment, the other woman looks up, her eyes cloudy with drink and confusion.

  
Johanna waits.

 

  
_(There’s blood on her hands and she uses the sharp edges of her nail when it seems like the rest stop’s soap isn’t working well enough to get it off. She scrubs so hard her skin begins to tear.)_

  
“Johanna,” Enobaria finally slurs with a slow smile, like they’re old friends or something. Like she’s so happy to see her. The tips of her canines glint in the rooms dull light. “Long time no see.”

 

 

**iii | Johanna Mason, Peeta Mellark | 1004**

  
Some guy—Steve? Sean? Sam? Johanna’s already forgotten—has her in the backseat of his car. One hand cupping the clammy skin at the back of her neck, the other palm snug at the apex of her thighs. She licks her chapped lips, sits up some and when she opens her eyes Johanna notices someone through the foggy back window. He’s looking down, his ash blond hair like a lighthouse in the night, as he leans against the trunk of a car off to the side of hers.

  
She can’t see his face, his blue eyes, the curve of his mouth, but she recognizes him.

Johanna swallows and watches the figure outside of her door; raises her hips and helps this man first unbutton and then tug her jeans down. Not all the way off though, just enough to get between her thighs, just enough to touch skin on skin.

  
She cups his ridged length in a tight grip and when he pushes inside, she forgets about the man from her past that’s just beyond her door, waiting to invade her present.

  
-

Afterward, they fall out of the backseat: silently pulling zippers up, combing fingers through uncooperative strands of hair, tugging sleeves back onto shoulders and jeans into place on previously naked hips.

  
She sees him still standing there but waits until she’s zipping up her jeans to acknowledge him.

  
“Hey,” she finally says.

  
“How are you,” he asks and she’s almost startled when the man beside her speaks. She’d forgotten he was even here.

  
“Peeta?”

  
She turns to find her companions eyes big and round with shock. Like he’s just laid eyes on Caesar Flickerman or President Snow’s reanimated corpse. Like he’s seeing a celebrity and she guesses he is.

  
There are Hunger Games playing cards, after all. Young girls lay their heads on pillows with a 16-year-old Peeta’s likeness sewn onto them and many of the victors work the lecture circuit. They get paid to show up to clubs and are invited to ribbon cuttings and store openings. Add that to the pension they receive due to the governments collective guilt and even champions who weren’t reaped for the final Quarter Quell can make a good living without having to get a real job and there’s no Hunger Games winner more famous or sought after or reclusive than Peeta and his _Mockingjay_.

  
This has to be a big moment for the kid.

  
“Oh my—“ he drops off suddenly, like he can’t find the words. “When The Mocking jay was up in the tree and you were still with the careers and went back for that girl…”

  
He’s still talking but Peeta’s eyes have gone flat and lifeless. Johanna bites her lip and leans against the side of the car as the kid goes on and on about his favorite kills and Katniss’ arrow piercing the dome and how anxious he was watching it all go down.

  
  
She can’t understand how he doesn’t notice what’s happening but Johanna really can’t blame him for bringing it up. He’s quite a bit younger than they are and she could see how, with the way things are, it would be all too easy to forget that The Games weren’t a TV show. That they weren’t scripted and that every day was a battle.

  
She could let this go on, watch until Peeta finally cracks but she sighs instead. That’ll just drag out whatever he’s here for and she’s got other things to do.

  
“Get lost.”

  
The kid looks back at her, annoyed, before he finally picks up on the tension coming off of Peeta in waves. He licks his lips and takes a step back. “It was nice to meet you.”

  
Peeta nods and the kid turns to her. “I’ll see ya, Jo?”

  
“Uh Huh,” she responds non-committedly and pulls a cigarette from the back pocket of her jean shorts. She can hear the gravel crunching beneath the soles of his shoes as he hurries away. Just outside the balmy confines of her car, Johanna can see her breath—wide plumes of fragile white smoke that dissipate as quickly as they appear—but she ignores the cold and shakes her head, no, when Peeta offers her his jacket.

  
“Unless you’re here to dance, do morph or fuck,” she says lowly, watching his features closely, trying to read him. “I’m not quite sure why you’re in District Five. Doesn’t seem like the sort of place the Mockingjay’s _boyfriend_ should be.”

  
“I’m at home in every situation,” he replies, neatly side stepping the bait she’d laid out. “I was passing through and I heard you were here. I thought I’d come out and see you.”

  
They stare at one another quietly, sizing each other up.

 

“Come visit us,” he finally says.

  
“ _Us_ , huh?” She asks, crossing her arms over chest. There went one of her main barbs to needle him with.

  
“Yes,” he says slowly, like it’s the first time he’s spoken those words and he likes the taste of them in his mouth. “Yes, it’s us now. We want to see you, Johanna.”

  
She rolls her eyes and looks toward the club, she can feel the bass of the music playing inside through the soles of her shoes. It calls to her like a siren’s song. “Yeah,” she replies, “I’ll come visit sometime.” She’s sure he can hear just how hollow the promise is. She turns to him with a wide smile. “You should really come in. You haven’t lived until you’ve partied in District Five.”

  
His eyes flick to the building behind them. “Just one dance,” she promises and holds her hand out. “For old times’ sake.” He stares at her and, for an instant, Johanna thinks he might actually take it.

  
Then he shakes his head and takes a step back. “I’ll be late for the train.”

  
Johanna nods. “I’ll see you, then.” She takes off back to the club before he can say anything else, doesn’t look back to see if he’s watching.


End file.
